


Metonymic

by nanda (nandamai)



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Dysfunctional Relationships, F/F, F/M, Flashbacks, One Night Stands, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2000-03-01
Updated: 2000-03-01
Packaged: 2017-11-15 16:13:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/529122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nandamai/pseuds/nanda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A chance encounter reminds Chakotay and Seven of Nine of some things they’d be better off forgetting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Metonymic

**Author's Note:**

> This story is a sequel of sorts to Michele Masterson’s [Belated](http://appelsini.tripod.com/michele/belated.html), Boadicea’s [Only Me](http://members.tripod.com/~Appelsini/B7.html), and august’s [Almost Kathryn](http://members.tripod.com/~Appelsini/index-28.html) and [After Every Thing](http://members.tripod.com/~Appelsini/index-34.html). I don’t think I’m doing them justice, but I am grateful to all three writers, especially Michele, for letting me corrupt her lovely creation so.

It was her. I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t believe it, at first. 

I’d never thought I’d see her again. I wasn’t sure I wanted to see her again.

There’d been rumors, of course, in the beginning. Voyager had returned to earth, and she had disappeared almost immediately. Somebody had seen her in the beta quadrant; somebody had told somebody else she’d been on the crew of a freighter in the Tau Ceti system. But I hadn’t heard a word about her in years. I’d fallen out of touch with most of the Voyager crew, anyway. Tuvok and I sent messages occasionally, but Tuvok wasn’t much help with rumors.

Strange how the friends you keep are so rarely the ones you expect to.

Stranger still that Seven of Nine didn’t know I was following her in the marketplace.

She bought normal things, things any of us might buy when Starfleet isn’t providing toothpaste and replicator rations. Soap — scented soap, a little like cucumber, I found out when I passed that merchant’s table later. A packet full of native berries, and some dark, roasted beans that smelled like a cross between malt and coffee. A hairbrush. Another pair of loose gray trousers, exactly like the ones she wore. A plant, of all things. It was small and looked a little like ivy. It would grow. She stood for a while watching birds in cages; I wasn’t sure if they were for pets or for dinner, but they were bright green and hopped on spindly legs while flapping their flightless wings. She didn’t buy a bird. The things she did buy she put into a small backpack before she moved on.

I finally approached her when she stopped to drink from her water bottle. Ligos was a hot planet, hotter than I’d expected. She was standing by a stall selling platinum jewelry — necklaces, earrings, those bracelets the Ligosians wore tight on their upper arms.

Seven started when she saw me. She looked a bit like one of those caged birds, wanting to flee but not knowing how.

“Commander Chakotay? I’m — surprised to see you.”

“Likewise, Seven. And it’s just Chakotay now.”

She’d changed her name; I could tell by her reaction when I said it.

She was older. I guess we all were. She’d given up the form- fitting clothes for loose, utilitarian gray. She’d had the rest of her Borg implants removed, which must be why I hadn’t recognized her at first. She seemed somehow shorter — and it wasn’t because her shoes had no heels, though they didn’t. It was because she no longer stood like someone who could take on anyone in the room.

I wondered what it had cost her to lose the implants. I wondered if some of that superhuman memory had gone with them. I wondered if that was why she’d done it.

“What are you doing on Ligos Prime?” she asked, with what seemed a conscious effort to be friendly.

“Consulting for the Federation,” I said, shrugging. My assignment was very routine and not what I wanted to talk about. “The Ligos system has applied for membership. I’m part of a team trying to determine what effect that would have on the rest of the sector.”

She nodded uncomfortably. I could almost see her brain computing options, protocols, escape routes. It made me sad.

“There were a lot of people worried about you, Seven. After you disappeared. I’m glad to know you’re all right.”

“I did not belong on earth.”

“No. Neither did I.”

She looked at me, trying, I thought, to figure out if we meant the same thing. Maybe we did.

I wanted to ask her questions — how she had been, where she was living, why she had had the implants removed. But somehow I knew she didn’t want me to. And I didn’t really know her anymore, if I ever did.

“It’s good to see you. Chakotay.” She said my name with difficulty, like she was learning to speak.

“You too, Seven. I’m glad to know you’ve made out all right.”

“Yes. I suppose I have.” But her voice cracked as she said it.

“I’m sure you must be on your way somewhere,” I said. “I wouldn’t want to make you late.”

She surprised me. “I have a few moments before my transport leaves.”

“Buy you a drink, then?” And I felt myself grin, a little.

We found a quiet table near the back of a cafe. I ordered a local blend of herbal tea. Seven ordered something stronger. She asked politely about the other crew, though I couldn’t decide if she asked because she wanted to know, or because she felt she should want to.

I told her what I could. Harry’s ship had gone missing many years before. Neelix was long dead. Tuvok was still on Vulcan. B’Elanna and Tom had settled on a far-off colony, though I’d heard they were no longer a couple. I searched my memory for names I’d almost forgotten. But I left one out, even knowing it was the only one she really wanted to hear. I watched as she struggled not to ask.

Finally, feeling guilty and cruel, I said, “I haven’t seen her for nearly eight years, Seven.”

She nodded crisply, looking suddenly more like the old Seven than she had since I’d first spotted her. “I’m sorry. I assumed …” And her eyes darted to the ring on my left hand.

I fought the urge to laugh. I felt a little dizzy, though I told myself it was the heat. I remembered Kathryn’s tears at Neelix’s funeral, her eyes the next morning when she told me she loved me. Her face when I turned her down. Her hair swinging down her back as she walked away.

“No,” I said to Seven. “No.”

“I suppose,” she said, “that should not surprise me. But it does.”

It still surprised me, sometimes. But I didn’t say that. I loved my wife. I did. Very much.

“It was all a long time ago,” I said. Though now, sitting with Seven, it didn’t seem so long. It was as if my memories had taken form, leaping from my head to the chair beside me. I could almost smell Kathryn, feel her hand on my chest. And I remembered the night, eleven years earlier, when I had realized that Kathryn haunted Seven the same way she haunted me.

***

It was late. Voyager was about to pass through an unstable nebula, our only option to avoid entering space claimed by the Kavarae, who’d warned us away. We were all a bit tense, though we wouldn’t enter the nebula until morning.

Unable to sleep, as I frequently was, I’d wandered down to Astrometrics in civvies. I stared at maps, readings, sensor logs. I wanted to know this thing by heart.

I’d been there for nearly an hour when the door whished open behind me. I turned slowly, sure it could only be one of two people at that hour. It was the more likely person. I didn’t know if I should be disappointed.

Seven was wearing blue, and she hesitated by the door. It wasn’t like her. “Commander. I did not expect to find you here.”

“Oh. Sorry, Seven. I couldn’t sleep and thought I’d check out the maps one last time.”

“You did not trust my report?”

I heard an echo of self-doubt in her voice, and I stared for a microsecond before I could stop myself.

“It’s not that. I just don’t know any other way to prepare for this.”

“Forewarned is forearmed?”

I smiled at her use of the old Earth proverb. I’d been unsure of Seven at the beginning, but I’d grown to like her more than I’d expected. She was developing a dry, ironic sense of humor. I approved.

“Forewarned is the closest we can get to forearmed,” I said. “Am I in your way?”

“No.”

We stood side by side, studying the star maps. Her hands darted across the console, pulling up a new set of readings. I asked a few questions. I didn’t ask why she was there, though I wondered. I had a feeling she wanted to talk about something, but with Seven, it didn’t do much good to ask. She’d come out with it in her own time.

And she did. “May I ask you something, Commander?” she asked finally.

“Of course.”

“I believe you know the Captain better than most of the crew does.”

I didn’t look at her. I didn’t feel like I knew Kathryn at all anymore, some days, and I could admit to myself — though not to anyone else — that it hurt. “I guess I do.”

“I believe she is avoiding me.”

You and me both, I thought. But I remembered the vulnerability I’d heard in Seven’s voice, earlier, and I noticed that she was looking at the screen, not at me.

I gave up on the star maps. I turned to face her, leaning my hip against the console. She looked at me out of the corner of her eye, pretending, I thought, not to care very much.

“Seven, the captain believes it’s inappropriate for her to become too close to a member of her crew. I wouldn’t take it personally. I know she values your opinions.”

“It is difficult not to … take it personally.”

“I know it’s difficult,” I said, in a massive understatement. “But I don’t think she’s going to change.”

“Commander, may I ask you a personal question?”

“I think you already have, Seven.”

She caught the joke. She usually did now, I’d decided; she just didn’t always let on that she understood. One eyebrow moved a centimeter up her forehead.

“Were you and Captain Janeway ever involved in a physical relationship?”

“Not really. No.”

“Yet you wished you were?”

I knew I shouldn’t answer. I told myself it was Seven who needed to have this conversation. “I did.”

“Then we are as one.”

I blinked. I had to look at her twice, and I felt a sad smile creeping up my face. “I guess we are.” I wondered why I hadn’t thought of it before: Seven and I had both fallen for Kathryn Janeway, and we’d both been burned.

“How do you prevent yourself from thinking about her?”

“I wish I could. But it does get easier with time, Seven. It does.”

She thought for a few seconds, tilting her head to the side slightly. “Thank you, Commander. I believe you have given me the answers I require. Good night.”

“Anytime, Seven.”

“Yes. Thank you.” She turned and walked briskly to the door, leaving me to stare at the map on the viewscreen.

I’d heard the rumors about them, of course. I’d tried to ignore them, as I’d mostly ignored those about Kathryn and myself in the early years. But until that night, I’d never really thought about what it meant for Seven. The truth was, I hadn’t known whether there was anything between Kathryn and Seven, and that had stung — on many different levels. So I’d tried to set it aside. Jealousy did not suit me.

I’d known better than to fall in love with Kathryn in the first place — Kathryn, who let her friends in only to push them away when it became uncomfortable; Kathryn, with her all-or-nothing attitude about life and command. I’d known better. But Seven hadn’t, and I was suddenly furious with Kathryn for hurting her that way.

In the silence of Astrometrics I chuckled at myself. I’d never imagined I’d feel protective over a former Borg.

***

In the cafe on Ligos, I ordered another drink for Seven, and the same for me. I thought I smelled Kathryn’s perfume.

I pulled myself back to the present. “Would you mind if I told some of the others I saw you? I’m sure they’d like to know how you are.”

Seven considered my request. “You may tell Commander Tuvok,” she said.

Kathryn, sailing on Lake George. Kathryn planting tomatoes. Kathryn in sickbay, after I had jettisoned Seven’s Borg companions into space.

“Do you think of her often?” Seven asked quietly.

I wondered if Seven had ever told Kathryn how she felt. I thought I knew — I thought I didn’t have to wonder — what Seven would have said if it had been her, not me, that Kathryn had come to the morning after Neelix’s funeral. The morning I sent Kathryn away.

I sighed. “Once in a while. Strange things remind me. You?”

She didn’t answer.

“You have to let it go, Seven. I know it’s not easy. But it’ll destroy you if you let it.”

She pursed her lips, almost a smile but not quite. I realized I was talking down to her, explaining life to her as I had on Voyager. Back then, she had needed the advice. Now, I suspected, there were things she could teach me.

I wasn’t sure I wanted to learn them.

“Sorry,” I said. “That was condescending, wasn’t it?”

“It’s all right. I understand.”

Kathryn playing pool in Sandrine’s. Kathryn on the bridge the day we made it home. I remembered the set of her jaw, the ice in her eyes. I remembered wondering when she’d relax her shoulders.

Thinking of that Kathryn, the Kathryn Seven and I had both known, filled me with — not regret, exactly. More like homesickness. A little like the way I felt about Dorvan, which had been destroyed in the Cardassian war. I could never go back to either one.

I looked at Seven, and I knew she understood. Somehow, as we sat together, we’d both gotten a little closer to home. I found myself fiddling with my ring, and I knew Seven had seen me do it.

Her fingers touched my jaw. The fingers, I thought idly, of what had been her metallic hand.

“I have a hotel room,” I said.

She cocked her head a little, a pseudo-nod she’d used many times on Voyager. I’d thought of it as a Borg gesture, but the Borg didn’t really make gestures, did they?

The hotel was not far, an expensive place in the city center. The Federation was paying the bill. I swiped the card key through the lock. I tried not to think. We undressed in silence and fucked on the floor just inside the door.

Seven was on top, in control. I didn’t mind. She closed her eyes and reached between her legs, riding me mindlessly. Only Seven never did anything mindlessly.

She came with a little gasp, shivered, and went still. I grabbed her hips and kept pumping upwards, watching her face and her closed eyes, knowing all along that neither of us was really making love to the other, knowing that she’d wash away every trace of me the first chance she had. I didn’t care.

I asked her afterwards if she wanted to get some dinner. Her only answer was to reach for her clothing.

I lay there, on the marble floor, sweaty and sticky and guilty, watching her dress. She turned from me as she pulled on gray underthings, a gray sweater, gray trousers.

Before she left she asked one thing.

“Will you see her?”

“I don’t know. Probably not.”

“Please don’t tell her you saw me.”

“I won’t.”

She held my eyes and offered a faint smile as she settled her backpack on her shoulders. Neither of us said goodbye.

I knew I’d never see her again.

I lifted my head off the floor and banged it back down again, hard. It didn’t make the smell of Kathryn’s perfume go away.


End file.
